10 Stunning Hidden Paradises From Around The World

Lencois Maranhenses: An oasis in the middle of the desert makes a pretty picture, but they're few and far between in most of the world's arid regions. Lencois Maranhenses National Park, on the other hand, is absolutely peppered with them. Located in northeastern Brazil, this sand-covered, 155,000-acre park isn't actually a desert, even though it looks like one. It's located right outside the Amazon jungle and receives the same amount of rainfall you'd expect to see in a tropical rainforest. When the rainwater collects between the dunes, it forms thousands upon thousands of separate lagoons that stretch as far as the eye can see.Each lagoon functions as a completely unique ecosystem. Despite the lack of inlets or outlets, many of the standalone lagoons are filled with fish that were carried to the pools as eggs by seabirds. But since the sandy ground is largely devoid of nutrients, very little vegetation grows in Maranhenses, turning it into sort of a combination of two worlds, like oil and water stirred into the same bowl.